Sword of the Bright Lady

by M. C. Planck

  “I’m sorry?” he said again, although he could hardly apologize since he didn’t know what was wrong with druids, or even what they were. Rana could see he didn’t understand and staggered off, stunned and defeated by his sheer ignorance.

  The hall was packed for today’s announcements, with curious fathers, nervous mothers, and hopeful boys everywhere. Christopher spotted his new champion laughing and joking with his newest challenger, their heavy, gleaming armor marking them out like lighthouses in a sea of drab peasant cloaks. They were sizing up the boys, who took their ribbing good-naturedly. After all, these were real-life heroes.

  Karl took the podium. Without preamble he began. “I’ve chosen the following. When I call your name, affirm and come forward.”

  Karl had scored better than Christopher had hoped. Every name Karl called was present. He’d expected at least one to fail to show up, either because his parents overruled him or he’d had second thoughts.

  And yet even Karl could not compete with the knights. The boys loved Karl, but they lusted after the knights. All the two warriors had to do was whistle, and Christopher would lose his entire entourage, like rats after the piper. He felt his cheek twitch. Like Karl’s so often did.

  Karl had made his way to the interior door. He turned, called once to the group, softly, and Christopher was struck with sickening fear. The boys were still gawking at the knights, still pinned by the glittering spectacle of heroism. He knew instantly that Karl would not call again. Worse, he knew Karl would never forgive any boy who did not come now. The men were recanting some war story, and the disappointed boys, the ones not named, were wholly enraptured. Christopher watched with terrible anxiety as the others struggled between the call of duty and the lure of fame.

  Christopher was the one who broke first. “Let’s go,” he shouted, grabbing the one nearest him. “Move it along.”

  “A weedy crop you’ve got here, priest,” Cannan laughed. “You’re picking your beans early.”

  “Come back in a few seasons, and then tell me what you think,” he replied. The boys weren’t moving as fast as he would like. He was getting worried again as he made his way to the door.

  But Karl’s boys came. Some on their own, some driven by parents, a few prodded by their friends. But they all came.

  Weak with relief, Christopher released his iron grip on the last one’s shoulder and followed Karl into the next room.

  Now it was just the boys and their parents. Not all of them had two, and several of them had three. Christopher decided not to ask.

  “We’ve got to fill out some forms, and then I owe you all some money,” he announced. The procedure was simple, if expensive. He wrote his and each boy’s name in the writ, the boy made his mark, Karl witnessed it, and Christopher handed each set of parents nine gold coins. “That’s for the rest of this season. Come summer, I’ll pay you again.”

  “For any boys that are still worth it,” Karl added menacingly.

  “I’ll promise to feed them well,” Christopher said, eyeing the ragged lot, “and I’ll buy them some new clothes. They’ll be well cared for.”

  “Don’t mind that,” one father said. “Just make them tough, like Goodman Karl.” His unspoken comment hung in the silent air, visible on every face.

  So they’ll come home again, like Goodman Karl had.

  They sent the troop to Palek’s to be fitted for simple open-face helms like the ones Christopher and the guards wore. Christopher might agree with Karl on the worthlessness of armor, but helmets were another matter. Even in WWII they wore helmets.

  He and Karl went off to the weapon-smith’s, figuring their absence could only improve Palek’s mood.

  “We can’t give them swords,” Karl explained along the way. “It would be too much of an affront to the men. They’re not drafted, yet. They’re not men, yet. They’ll be disappointed, but we must find other arms.”

  “You said we should send them out with just spears and crossbows,” Christopher replied, “and I agree. For now.” Karl had coerced the Vicar’s police into lending him four crossbows, so all they needed were some spears.

  Jurgen was smiling to see them, with visions of gold coins in his eyes. “You’re recruiting your own troop. Very forward-thinking. You will find my sword-craft an equal to Palek’s armor.” Apparently the promise of profit was enough to assuage whatever affront Jurgen would feel.

  “We want to look at spears,” Christopher said.

  The smith frowned, taken aback. He led them to a corner of the shop where old stock laid stacked and dusty. “These are the standard spears, Pater, for the ordinary draft.”

  Christopher pointed to an ugly little stick with a short stubby blade on it. “What’s that?” he said.

  “That’s a half-spear, Pater. A novice’s project.” He added sourly, “Farmers use them for sticking pigs.”

  “It’s perfect,” Christopher said. It was no more than four feet long. “I’ll take twelve.” He wasn’t going to give one to Charles. The boy’s literacy made him too valuable for that. “Can you have them ready by next Tenday?”

  “You can have them now,” the smith muttered, and stamped off, leaving one of his juniors to deal with the unprofitable customers.

  Karl was almost grinning as they left, carrying the sticks bound together in a large bundle. “Tweaking Jurgen was worth it,” he said, “even if all we do is burn these for firewood.” The half-spears had cost a single gold each, the cheapest object in Jurgen’s entire inventory. “But I think I’ll hide these till the boys get to the village. We don’t want them bursting into tears in front of the whole town.”

  They stashed the bundle under a stack of blankets in Fingean’s wagon, Christopher counting out coins to the drayer to carry back to the weaver.

  “We’ll need coats,” Christopher said, thinking out loud. The townsmen were adequately dressed, but the peasant rags would be no more sufficient for the boys than Christopher’s were for him. Napoleon had miscalculated the material requirements of fighting in cold weather; Christopher would not make the same mistake. “And boots.” He looked down at his purse, calculating.

  “I’ll pay for the helmets,” Karl said. “No one can fault me on that, since it’s for the draft.”

  “Then I can afford to dress them like soldiers,” Christopher said. A uniform would help mold a group identity out of his teenage mob.

  “And yourself,” Karl said. “It is time you dressed like a man of means instead of the village scarecrow.”

  The idea made Christopher uneasy, even though he was tired of being cold. He did not want a new identity here; he did not want to be anything other than the lost beggar seeking his way home.

  Christopher almost lost his army on the way back to the village. Half of them ran off into the woods to have a snowball fight. Tom was diplomatic, never losing his smile. Fingean glowered and threatened the boys with a club when their snowballs got too close to his draft-horse.

  Karl ignored it all, so Christopher followed his lead.

  Cannan stayed behind in town, saying he didn’t see any reason to go out to the village. “If anybody wants a duel, send them here.” It seemed like a good idea to Christopher. He didn’t like the way the boys fawned over the knight.

  At the chapel they pushed benches together and threw bales of hay on them for beds; Christopher’s workroom was reduced to a corner next to the fireplace. Then Karl nailed the back door shut. Now the only way in and out of the chapel was through the main hall. Christopher wasn’t sure if that was to keep the Invisible Guild out or the chaotic mass of boys in.

  Dinner exposed an oversight.

  “I should have bought a bigger table,” Christopher said.

  “They’ll spend the next three years eating off the ground,” Karl replied. “Might as well start now.”

  In the morning Karl lined the boys up at attention. The indulgence of the night before was gone; Karl cowed the line into silent obedience with a glare so fierce even Christopher stood
straighter.

  “This is your friend,” Christopher said, handing out the half-spears. “You will keep it with you always. You will keep it clean. You will sleep with it. You will live with it. It will never be out of your sight.”

  Karl had not been wrong. The boys looked at their stubby little toys with dismay. “Beginning your pardon, Pater,” said one. “It’s a stick.”

  Christopher forestalled Karl’s wrath with a raised hand. “It’s a test,” he explained. “I don’t trust you with anything more valuable than sticks yet.

  “And let’s get one thing straight right now. You can ask me questions. I’m just a priest. But Karl is your officer. I’ll not overrule him on anything: tasks, punishment, or even if he sends you home. You work for me, but you belong to him.”

  Karl barked, and the boys jumped. “You think I’ve got all year to make you soldiers? You’re wrong. I’ve got two weeks. We start now.”

  Christopher fled to the kitchen. He knew if he hung around he’d just get in the way and feel sorry for the boys to boot.

  16.

  FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

  Karl was a monster that never slept, with a thousand eyes that never missed a detail. The boys would have broken down and cried, but they didn’t have the time. Christopher attended some of the drills because he needed to know what commands to give. He also needed the exercise. The boys smirked at his poor efforts only on the first day. After that they were too tired to notice.

  “We don’t actually need them to be able to fight yet,” Christopher had tried to explain to Karl on that first evening, wincing as he stripped his boots off his aching feet with aching arms. “They just have to look good, to keep the Invisible Guild at bay.”

  “I don’t know how to train mummers,” was Karl’s terse reply.

  After the second day Christopher was just grateful that he got time off from the regime. True, he spent it shoveling manure, but that activity was less physically taxing. And less embarrassing, since he didn’t have Karl standing over him to glare disapprovingly when he did it wrong.

  Except today he had a surprise audience. Lady Niona watched him from under her wavy black hair with curious eyes and an enigmatic smile, perched atop her pretty brown horse, her black feathered cat perched with equal poise on her shoulder.

  “I did not mean to disturb your work,” she said, while he planted the shovel blade in the pile and tried to look like he had just found it there.

  “It’s okay.” He was a little disconcerted that he had no idea how long she had been watching him. If a horse and rider could sneak up on him in the middle of town, his future on the battlefield seemed perilous. “What does Cannan want?”

  “The same as any man,” she said, “but I am not here on his account. I thought to spare your Vicar my distressing presence.”

  So this must be the druid Rana had complained about. Christopher couldn’t see what was distressing about her; she was neither as scary as her husband nor as immodest as the blonde-haired bard. Unthinkingly, he blurted out the question that came to mind.

  “What does the Vicar have against druids?”

  Niona’s face betrayed almost no reaction, which itself betrayed a carefully adopted pose of imperturbability. Her pet, however, fluttered its wings and hissed.

  “Jeger dishonors me with his rudeness,” Niona said with a little laugh like the tinkling of bells. “Still, one cannot expect so much from a kittenhawk.”

  An apt name; it looked exactly like a black-and-white tuxedo kitten wearing a pair of Halloween costume crow’s wings. It was as cute as a button, except for the bared fangs and the juxtaposition of unnatural body parts. Christopher stared at it in amazement.

  “You have never seen one before?” Niona said, stating the obvious.

  “No . . . does it purr?”

  “Yes, it is akin to a terrestrial cat in most ways.”

  Christopher was impressed with how adroitly she had changed the subject, allowing his faux pas to expire silently, but he was already knee-deep in the manure pile, quite literally as it happened, so he pressed the matter.

  “Why does the Vicar dislike you?”

  “Because I am a druid.” Niona’s eyes revealed real curiosity now. “Surely you understand—we do not bow to your Goddess, or any god. We are bound to the Wheel of Life; not to a part, but the whole; not to a single nature, but nature itself.”

  So, hippies. Christopher could see how the uptight Rana would take a dim view of tree-huggers.

  “That stuff doesn’t concern me,” he said. “I won’t hold someone’s religion against them.”

  He finally succeeded in breaking through her reserve. With stark wonderment she said, “You would welcome even a slave of the Gold Throne with open arms?” The kittenhawk glared at him and unfurled its wings, crowning Niona in black feathers.

  “Those are the bad guys? The ones we are at war with?”

  Niona smiled at him crookedly. “Yes, and no. They are certainly Dark, and dedicated to your destruction; but they are also your allies in the perpetual war your King wages against the Wild.”

  “My King?”

  She winced delicately. “I meant our King, of course. We druids are loyal subjects of the crown, even when we disagree with it.”

  Not just hippies; political subversives. Rana’s attitude was looking more reasonable. Niona must have seen his wary calculation on his face, because she offered reassurance.

  “A divided heart, yes, but I am testament to its earnestness, wedded as I am to a knight of utterly Domestic pedigree. Cannan, it hardly needs said, is no druid lord.”

  “How did that go down with the folks at home?”

  “I cannot say,” she conceded. “We have not been home yet, to face father’s disappointment or mother’s wrath.”

  Great. He’d hired Romeo to be his dueling champion.

  “And after all these years, I still hesitate. We eloped south, into the Far Wild, ranging afield like any young druid lordling seeking his spurs. And we found them, earning our ranks the old way, but even that seems not enough. So Cannan came running to the rumour of your sword and now seeks to establish his reputation beyond question.”

  Christopher was trying not to feel sympathetic. He had just discovered that he faced dangers no one had bothered to mention, perhaps because they were so obvious. Between his sword, his religion, and his draft, he’d managed to make more enemies than just smacking Hobilar around would seem to deserve.

  But he failed. Niona had made her choices for the same reasons he had made his.

  “As long as I have anything to say about it, you’re always welcome here,” he said.

  She disdained the inn, pitching a camp in the forest outside the village that was little more than a place to tie up her horse. Svengusta accepted her without comment or prejudice, and eventually the villagers seemed to do the same. Her presence was a constant reminder of her husband’s pledge, and Christopher began to relax, feeling shielded by her gentle confidence. If she could sleep in the open, then surely he could sleep in peace.

  His vacation was doomed to end too soon, and it did when the pretty troubadour Lalania blew through the doors like the pleasant breeze before the storm.

  “I like what you’ve done with the place,” she smirked, looking around at the beds and dirty laundry.

  “Now what?” he asked, ignoring her baiting.

  “Now comes real trouble,” she said, not smiling anymore. “Black Lord Bartholomew is on his way to claim your sword.”

  “You have the name of an Invisible Guild thug now?” he asked, surprised.

  “Bart’s a lord from the South. Black refers to his armor, and possibly his heart, not his membership in the Invisible Guild. Unless you know something I don’t.”

  “That seems,” Christopher said with resignation, “highly unlikely. But as long as you’re giving away information, what about my alleged champion?”

  “He’s coming too, but Black Bart is a Baron.” When Christopher did not immedi
ately react with appropriate dismay, Lalania sighed. “Your champion is third-ranked. Bart is fifth. Cannan is out of his league, and he knows it.”

  “Then I won’t accept a duel,” Christopher said.

  “And that’s why I’m here,” she said, exasperated. “To prevent you from wrecking the county. You might not appreciate it, but I know the Vicar will. You most certainly will duel him. He’s bringing his knights. They are armed, mounted, and utterly without scruples. If you don’t give them the sword, they’ll take it, and all your police or puppy dogs can do about it is get killed. Yes, the Church will complain to the King. Something might even be done about it, eventually. But the damage they will inflict on the peasantry will never be redressed. So you will duel him. I’ll not let you provoke a war.”

  “How does dueling help, exactly?”

  “If you lose, he’ll have his sword and a ransom, and he’ll go home happy. He won’t start a war for no profit. And your Church will revive you—you’ve got the money.”

  “But what if I win?”

  She rolled her eyes. “On the theory that you’re just asking out of curiosity, I’ll explain. If by some miracle of some unknown god you manage to slay Black Bart, his retinue will not cause trouble. They will only be interested in getting his ugly corpse to the Gold Apostle as quickly as possible.”

  “What if I just beat him? Without killing him?” That seemed to be his preferred method of dueling, after all.

  “I don’t think you should consider that option. If you get the chance, you’ll kill the monster or answer to every Bright in the Kingdom.”

  “Then I guess I’ll be giving him the sword.” Christopher turned to go back into his office.

  “That’s it?” she said with disbelief. “Just like that, you’ll hand over a magic sword for the asking?”

  This would make a lot more sense, he reflected, if she knew the sword wasn’t magical. Faren was making him look like a lunatic. Well, more like one. He was pretty sure he managed most of it on his own.